Internal combustion engines are known in the art. Further, rotary internal combustion engines are known in the art.
There are disadvantages of the existing rotary internal combustion engines as compared with existing four stroke piston engines. For example, rotary internal combustion engines can not match the reliability of piston engines. Problems of existing rotary internal combustion engines may include poor lubrication, overheating, excessive friction between the rotor and cylinder, and insufficient number of cycles.
Although well known for its reliability, there are well known disadvantages of existing four stroke piston internal combustion engines. For example, major disadvantages of piston engines include the necessity to accelerate and stop the piston and the connection rod four times in each single working cycle for a cylinder. This represents a significant loss of energy, and results in a significant loss of efficiency.
Another disadvantage of the piston engine is the centrifugal force, which the connecting rod applies against the piston side when the piston slides up and down in the cylinder. This creates wear, friction, heat, and thereby causes a loss of energy as well. Also, the direction of movement of the connection rod is not in the same direction as that of the piston, creating an additional side force between the piston and the cylinder, with resultant friction and loss of energy. Further, a massive crank shaft is needed for conventional piston engines, to transfer the linear movement of the piston into a rotational output.
It is a problem in the internal combustion engine art to reduce or eliminate the aforementioned problems and their effects. It is also a problem in the internal combustion engine art to combine the advantages of the rotary and piston engines.